Grateful in Watch Hill : A Small Town Romance, Sara Celi [good beach reads .TXT] 📗

But I hated that for her.

That meant something was gone, something had died inside her, and I suspected it was more than just the end of her dreams. I didn’t have to ask—I took it as a given that the dance company she worked with closed because of the health restrictions in New York. I’d read plenty of headlines and chatter online to know that most of the arts programs in the Big Apple suffered in the wake of the virus. If Kendra had made her way back to the Cincinnati area to deliver food for a smartphone app—well, that proved those headlines were right.

She was doing worse than I was. Way worse.

I turned on my side and took my phone off the charger. It had been a long time since I logged onto much of my social media, but I knew a few quick searches would tell me a lot about what had happened to her in the last year. I searched for her name on one app, then the next, and then a third, and after I’d scored through a few, I had a good idea of Kendra’s current situation.

No, this was not good. Not good at all.

The dance company was bankrupt and didn’t expect to open again. She performed her last show in March 2020, days before the rolling lockdowns that had made life so hard, and the Instagram-worthy photo of her spinning onstage came with an announcement that she’d just signed as a principal dancer with the company. God. She really was that good. And now . . . “Looking forward to opening next season in our modern take on Swan Lake,” she wrote in the caption, the euphoria behind the words obvious by the star and smiling emojis she included. “We can’t wait to see you in September!”

But September had come and gone, and there was no modern take. None.

From there, the trail went cold for a bit, but Kendra did post something about being home with family for the holiday season and enjoying the time with her dad. I suspected this was to help her put on a brave face, allowing her to check in with her followers and give her that dopamine rush that often came with sharing something on social media and getting the likes that followed. I didn’t disparage her for that either—before the pandemic I’d been something of a social media addict too, living for the likes and feedback I got whenever someone mentioned The Frosted Heart. I imagined she felt the same way.

But unlike Kendra, I still had some vestige of my dream. Kyle had been great to give me hours at his restaurant, and building the outdoor patio had also provided me with a sense of accomplishment that could only have come from getting my hands dirty and sweat on my brow. Once I gathered the right investors, I intended to get back into the nightclub game, and I’d even driven to a few locations across town, dreaming of how I might retrofit the properties before opening them to the public. I understood the boom-and-bust mentality that came with the industry where I thrived, and while this recent period had been a bust, success still lay around the corner.

I couldn’t be sure about that for a woman like Kenda. It had to be hard to train so long for a profession that then evaporated overnight. Most dancers had a quick and short shelf life, and she was at the top of hers. This wouldn’t be something she could easily recover from if she could recover at all.

What a darn shame.

And then I sat up in bed. Hmm. Speaking of darn shame . . .

I opened the text message app and scrolled through my contact list. Networking was one of my sharpest skills, and I knew people all over the Midwest with all kinds of different needs. I didn’t like to let anyone get too far away from me, knowing full well there might be a need. Bartenders, bouncers, DJs, musicians, performing arts troupes, models, waiters . . . no one strayed from my list. As a result, I could find whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it.

The last few months had kept me from accessing that network, though.

I located Nancy Smith’s name and typed out a quick message. She probably wouldn’t see it until the following morning, but I wanted to make sure that I contacted her before I forgot. I had a good idea, and she needed to read it.

Satisfied with the message, I locked the phone and pulled the comforter over my head. Time for sleep. At last.

KENDRA

The next day passed in a blur.

I got up early and applied for a slew of jobs I saw posted online, even stretching my résumé a bit as I submitted for positions in fields where I had no real experience. That was the biggest problem—I skipped college in favor of moving to New York City after high school, telling myself that it would be better to train with professionals than waste time studying for a degree I would never use. The sooner I started auditioning, the better chance I had of succeeding.

So, I didn’t have any degrees or certifications to show for my twenty-five years of life. That made my résumé look slim by comparison to those I knew were in the job market around me. How could I compete with people who had bachelor’s and master’s degrees?

Still, I did have work experience and determination in my side. That would help. Click. Submit. Click. Submit.

After that, I did a few chores around the house and got ready for another round of work on the FoodSwap app. Sunday mornings didn’t usually include many orders, but sometimes I got lucky. And luck was something I needed to survive. Dad and I couldn’t make it without a little bit of that.

A lot of it.

That was thing about the threat of hunger and the danger of losing everything. There was always